Trust Me: The Lassiter Group, Book 1 (23 page)

“Two days ago. You’ve been drugged up most of the time, in and out of consciousness and mostly incoherent. You came way to close to buying the farm, dude.”

Lucas closed his eyes. By some crazy twist of fate he’d survived, but had Max? She went for help, so if she didn’t make it back to him before the hunters stumbled across him, what the hell had happened to her?

He needed to find her. Now.

Sharp, red-hot pain knifed across his chest when he tried to sit up.

“Whoa. You’re not ready to get back up in the saddle just yet.”

Lucas forced air through his teeth, determined to get upright. “I need to find Max.” Before Blackwater and the RCMP or anyone else looking for her did.

“Jesus, the woman put a bullet in you. Let someone else track her down.”

The unrestrained hostility in Eli’s voice was exactly why he couldn’t sit back and let someone else handle it. “She didn’t shoot me. Or kill Cara,” he added.

Not even pretending to be convinced, Eli put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, it’s completely understandable that your memories are a little jumbled after what you’ve been through. You need to rest, Lucas.”

Knowing Eli was just looking out for him was the only thing that stopped him from telling his friend to back the fuck off. Instead of taking his frustration out on Eli though, he concentrated on getting upright.

“My memory is just fine. Max didn’t shoot me. She saved my life. I probably would have drowned if she hadn’t jumped in after me.” Lucas paused as his brain processed his own words.

Max wasn’t a fan of water, could barely swim and yet she’d jumped in after him. The realization did wonders to improve his mood, easing the pain in his chest long enough he made it to his side. He needed to find her, needed to make sure she was okay.

“Let’s say she didn’t shoot you,” Eli conceded.

“She didn’t. It was one of Blackwater’s guys.”

Eli frowned. “How the hell did they find you?”

“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes, inwardly bracing for the pain that was going to snatch his breath the second he tried to sit up. “What happened to you the other night? You didn’t show.”

“No shit. Those back roads are crazy to follow in the dark. Got lost and turned around more times than a blindfolded kid playing pin the tail on the jackass. The police were already at the B&B when I rolled up that morning, talking to the woman who owned the place. It was hard to tell how much progress they were making, though, when she wouldn’t put down the frying pan she was carrying.”

Relieved to know Miss Maddy managed to get out of the attic without hurting herself or anyone else, Lucas focused on the present. He finally made it upright, panting the whole way. His pain level had jumped from nine-point-five to twelve out of ten, easy.

“You’re not going to do her any good if you collapse. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Tess did. The gunshot injury was reported to the RCMP and local police. I imagine they’ll want to talk to you once the nurse lets them know you’re awake. I believe you’re a person of interest regarding a certain high-speed car chase to boot.”

“Don’t sound so impressed.”

Eli grinned. “Just sorry that I missed riding shotgun. Joe is making some calls, but if he can’t find a way to get you off the hook legitimately, then we’ll have to get creative. Which means you need to rest up.”

Still too weak to put up much of a fight, he let Eli help him lie back. “She’ll go back to New York. Tap some contacts there. I need to find her.”

Exhaustion pulled at him, and he rested his eyes for just a moment.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he resurfaced again—an hour? A day?—but Eli was no longer in the room.

Instead, it was Caleb who lounged in the chair next to him. Seeing his friend’s face, the slate gray gaze mirroring Cara’s so closely, Lucas welcomed the wave of grief that rose up, letting it temporarily drown out his other pain.

Caleb took a minute to notice he was awake, leaving him slower than usual to flawlessly mask his emotions. “Hey.”

“Got stuck babysitting me, huh?” Lucas tested the pain by shifting a little in the bed.

“Eli’s running interference with the local RCMP.”

“Any news on Max?”

Caleb leaned forward, looking first at his hands and then Lucas. “You should have told me what you were up to, and if not you, Tess damn well should have.”

“Great, like you needed another reason to give her a hard time.” Caleb and Tess’s arguments were practically legendary, both of them too damn stubborn for their own good.

“I would have had your back, Luc,” he said quietly. “I’ll always have your back. No matter what.” He glanced at the floor. “You weren’t to blame for what happened to Cara. I never thought you were. I just…”

“You’re just damn lucky you didn’t die before he had a chance to say that,” Eli finished, striding into the room.

Ignoring Eli, Caleb held Lucas’s gaze. “We cool?”

“Yeah.” He released a breath, taking Caleb’s outstretched hand and letting his friend help him into a sitting position. When he could breathe without the pain blurring his vision, he glanced at Eli. “What did you find out?”

“I’ve only had feelers out for half a day, but so far no one has heard anything about Blackwater catching up with her or taking her out. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, though. Maybe word just hasn’t gotten out yet.”

“Or maybe he doesn’t know where she is either.” She wasn’t dead. She was fine. He needed her to be fine.

And he needed like hell to find her.

“Oh,” Eli continued. “There was one little detail that you might be interested in hearing. Seems there was a nurse checking up on you when you came out of surgery. The doctor asked for her assistance and she split. No one has seen her since, nor does anyone seem to know who she was.”

Max.

Lucas smiled despite wanting to shoot her for risking a run-in with the RCMP. She couldn’t have stuck around though, or Caleb and Eli would have seen her by now. Which meant she was likely on her way back to New York.

He was torn between hoping that was her plan, which would make it easier to find her, and wishing she’d put as much space between her and Samuel Blackwater as possible.

“Oh, man, are you in it up to your balls, or what?”

Lucas frowned, glancing back and forth between Eli and Caleb. “Huh?”

“I know that look, dude.” Eli stood at the end of the bed. “You’ve got it bad for her, don’t you?”

Scowling, he nodded toward the door. “Take a walk while I get decent.” He tugged at the top of his hospital gown. “I assume one of you guys found me some clothes.”

“Damn.” Eli whistled. “Real bad.”

Caleb grabbed some clothes from the cupboard across from the bed. “Sure you don’t need some help?”

Lucas shook his head, waiting until the door closed to change—a painstaking process that took him way too long. He was sweating right through his clean shirt and hurting all over by the time he finished, and that was with Eli checking on him twice.

As much as his body wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed, he couldn’t afford to waste any more time here.

God, he needed to get to Max before Blackwater.

He didn’t know when finding Max became more about helping her get her life back and less about Cara’s death and Blackwater’s dealings, but somewhere along the way that’s exactly what happened.

Probably right around the time that the connection between the two of them deepened into something he wasn’t ready to let go of.

Not today. Maybe not ever.

Ten days.

Ten days since Lucas had been shot. Ten days since she’d run through the woods after flagging down a car only to find he’d vanished. She thought at first she’d gotten lost and misread the markers she’d left to find her way back to him, then she’d seen the blood.

For ten minutes she’d searched the area, terrified Snake or Edward Blackwater had found him and tossed his body in the river. Only when she crossed paths with two hunters who, after berating her for running around the woods during deer season without an orange hunting vest, mentioned an injured man being found earlier.

Relief had nearly broken her, and seeing her distress, the hunters had offered her a ride to the closest hospital where they were sure Lucas had been taken.

That had been ten days ago, and after making sure he was okay, she had contented herself with only calling the hospital to check on him. As much as she wanted to see him, to stay right there next to him, she wanted him safe and alive more.

Being anywhere near her, especially with Blackwater more determined than ever to get to her could only end up hurting him more. Until she found a way to nail the drug and arms dealer, she would keep her distance. Maybe that way she could keep him safe.

More than once he’d risked himself for her, and she refused to let him do it again. He was better off far away from her. People kept getting hurt when they got involved with her—Glen, Jillian, Cara and now Lucas.

Bringing down Blackwater on her own seemed impossible, but she wasn’t willing to spend another day looking over her shoulder, wondering if he’d finally caught up with her. If she didn’t find a way to clear her name, Blackwater would win. She couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let him ruin everything she’d worked so hard to build.

Her father had been so proud of her the day she’d graduated from the academy, his eyes shining with unshed tears when he’d said that CJ would have cheered the loudest for her. How could she let memories like that be shadowed by the pity and scorn her family would have been living under since she’d run?

They didn’t deserve to be whispered about behind their backs. Glen didn’t deserve to be tainted by the same brush that marked her as dirty.

She’d fix it. All of it.

It had taken her days to hitch her way back to New York, but she was finally ready to make some kind of move. One that started with getting back inside the warehouse.

The only problem was the number of guards Blackwater had watching the property and her lack of familiarity with the warehouse beyond the few details she could remember from the night Cara died.

With very few people on the streets she could trust, she had no choice but to ask Glen for information, and she’d been careful never to stay on the phone for too long. She wanted to be a hundred percent certain her location at the B&B hadn’t been tracked through her conversation with Glen, but if Lucas was right and Blackwater suspected she knew where his missing weapon was, he’d undoubtedly find a way to tap Glen’s phone at the precinct.

She and Glen had only spoken twice since her return, but she’d agreed to meet him in a couple hours after learning he was continuing to investigate the witnesses who had claimed she killed Cara. Seeing as he stubbornly refused to listen when she insisted he stop digging into it during their brief phone conversations, she was counting on a personal visit convincing him.

Shivering from the late October cold snap, Max tucked her chin into her borrowed jacket as she hit the last block leading to her cousin’s apartment. She had finally gotten in touch with Sherri and apologized for the damage to her shop and for scaring the crap out of her friend by not letting her know she was okay sooner—the latter of which Sherri wasn’t going to forgive her for anytime soon apparently. She’d had Sherri call Max’s cousin Ashley, who lived in France part of the year, and ask about a friend subletting the place.

With Sherri personally vouching for the mystery tenant, Ashley had agreed and made arrangement for keys to be left, which Max had picked up three days ago. Although no one had any reason to be watching Ashley’s place, Max had been careful to make sure she wasn’t being followed.

Her stomach rumbled as she dug the key out of her pocket and let herself into the apartment building. By the time she climbed the three flights of stairs, she swore she could feel every single hour since she’d left Lucas in the woods bearing down on her.

Letting herself into the apartment, Max surveyed the stark white walls and open concept design, wishing she was in her own cramped cluttered apartment instead. Although here she could appreciate the security that came in knowing there were very few places an assailant could hide in plain sight if they managed to follow her home.

Drawing a weapon she’d stolen from her father’s lockbox—and getting in and out of there without being noticed hadn’t been easy—she did a sweep of the apartment to confirm she was indeed alone, then unzipped her jacket and left it on the table.

She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and scanned the notes she’d been making, trying to figure out a way to get into the warehouse that didn’t involve strolling right up to the front door.

She dug Cara’s lip gloss from her pocket and rolled it back and forth in her palm, staring at the pages in front of her until she couldn’t ignore her hunger any longer. Two pieces of toast—even if they were slathered in strawberry jam—were a far cry from the lobster dinner she and Lucas had shared.

God, she hoped he was doing okay. No matter how many times she tried reassuring herself that they hadn’t known each other long, she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t thinking about him—missing him—so much it made her heart hurt.

Worried, tired and more than a little convinced she’d foolishly given more of herself to Lucas than she counted on, she headed for the shower. Her most recent recon of the warehouse had ended with running smack into a wino, one in the midst of taking a swig from his pint of rum, the contents of which had been splashed down the front of her in the process.

The wino hadn’t been impressed.

Setting her gun on the back of the toilet, next to the shower, she stripped down and hopped in, letting the hot water wash away both the rum and whispers of doubt that she wasn’t going to beat Blackwater.

When she finished and changed into a clean shirt of Ashley’s, she glanced at the bed, wondering if she had time for a quick nap.

Something in the hallway creaked, and she pivoted around, snatching her gun off the bed. Pulse pounding, she crossed to the door and checked the line of sight to the kitchen.